DAYTONA BEACH, Fla., Feb. 18 — For all that Mark Martin has accomplished in a legendary career, he will always be remembered in part for what he could not do. Martin, one of the most beloved drivers in Nascar history, never won a season points championship despite finishing the top 10 in 16 of 18 years. And he never captured the Daytona 500.
But what makes it so agonizing for Martin is how close he has come, and Sunday’s race was as agonizing as it gets.
Martin held the lead on the final turn of the final lap at Daytona International Speedway. He was that close to victory. It was Martin’s race to win, until Kevin Harvick somehow won it instead.
With a pack of cars crashing behind them, Harvick took the high line and Martin went low as the drivers came off of Turn 4 and raced to the checkered flag. Harvick had the momentum and that was enough. He reached finish first by a little less than the front hood of his racecar.
That was the difference between a wild celebration from Harvick, the driver who replaced Dale Earnhardt and became the leader of Richard Childress Racing, and a stunning second-place showing for Martin, a driver who has won 35 times in his career.
But never here.
“When I get done here tonight, I probably will feel like I did everything that I could do,” Martin said. “I don’t know of any particular scenario that I could have changed that would have changed the outcome.”
The frantic finish came after a major wreck with just over four laps remaining took out Dale Earnhardt Jr. along with two other racecars who were battling in a bunched-up lead pack. Nascar officials red-flagged the race, forcing the drivers to park and wait for 11 minutes 39 seconds before a two-lap sprint to the finish.
Oddly, the race had been free of any crashes through the first 150 laps of the 200-lap event. As the sun set and the track cooled, it changed conditions. In those final 50 laps, there were series of wrecks that took out the top contenders Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch, and the defending champion, Jimmie Johnson. And it opened up the race for the rest, with Martin moving in front.
Harvick had fallen back at the same time with a hole in his radiator. But the cautions allowed him to fix the problem and move back up among the leaders. He was in seventh when the final green flag waved with two laps to go, just enough time to move through the pack for a last-lap challenge of Martin.
With the car bunched together, and everyone eager to find a lane to the front, it seemed inevitable that there would be one more wreck in the end. The crash took out another contender, Jeff Gordon, along with Kyle Busch, who had been directly behind Martin. Without Busch to push Martin down the stretch, Harvick’s momentum coming off the turn was enough to propel him past Martin.
“It was the wildest thing I’ve been a part of in a long time,” he said of the finish and the wrecks that led to it.
This was the first Daytona 500 victory for the owner Richard Childress since Earnhardt was killed on the final lap of this race in 2001, six years ago to the day.
“To be part of that history is something that’s hard to put into perspective,” Harvick said. “It’s hard to put into words right now.”
A tinge of melancholy mixed with the euphoria, though. Harvick was the driver who kept Martin from winning.
“I knew I was going to be the bad guy there at the end with Mark leading,” . i just held my pedal down and hoped for the best.”
Martin said he thought Nascar officials might have yellow-flagged the race immediately. Had that happened, Martin likely would have won. Instead, the yellow flag was waved after the checkered flag, and the victory was Harvick’s. Martin, who lost by two-hundredths of a second had no complaints afterward.
“Nobody wants to hear a grown man cry,” Martin said. “I’m not going to cry about it. This is what it is and that’s it. That’s the end. They made the decision and that’s what we’re going to live with.”
For Jeff Burton, who was third, it was a bittersweet view of the finish. Burton was the longtime teammate of Martin at Roush Racing and the two remain close. But Burton left to join Richard Childress Racing in 2004, becoming a teammate of Harvick.
“As good as I feel for R.C.R., I feel that bad for Mark,” Burton said. “I’m gonna tell you Mark Martin is a champion. I don’t care if he ever wins a championship. I don’t care if he ever wins the Daytona 500, He’s a champion. But it would be nice for Mark Martin to see the hardware in the trophy case. For him. But from the competitors, he has so much respect.
“Disappointed for him,, but at the same time, I’m so ecstatic for R.C.R. To get another Daytona 500 is a great deal. It’s huge. But exceptionally disappointing for Mark Martin.”
At least Martin had a chance at the end. Stewart was long gone by that point. And it was Stewart who came into the race believing this could be his year to cross the Daytona 500 of his heady list of things to accomplish in Nascar. Stewart had won the Budweiser Shootout exhibition on Feb. 10, then captured his qualifying race last Thursday and started the 500 on the second row behind the pole sitter, David Gilliland.
Stewart led for 32 laps early, but stalled his racecar while pitting under a yellow flag, and was then penalized for speeding off of pit road, forcing him to the back of the field. He had dropped to 40th by the time the green flag waved again on Lap 84. Stewart methodically moved up through the field and passed Busch on the backstretch of lap 150, with 50 laps left to win the Daytona 500. But then it was over. As the two drove nose-to-tail through turn four, it appeared Stewart’s racecar got loose and his back end wiggled. He slowed enough for Busch to tap him from behind. Stewart’s racecar began to slide, and Busch knocked into him again, with both crashing into the wall coming off of Turn 4.
“I made the first mistake,” Busch said. “I apologize to the 20 car. I know it doesn’t help.”
Stewart said, “Just wasn’t meant to be today.”
